|
The cruelest month
|
 |
April 10, 1998: 3:49 p.m. ET
As April builds to a peak, tax pros trade tales of fear and loathing
|
NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Imagine, if you will, the pain and horror of preparing a tax return. Think about wading through the scattered documents of the year, the crumpled receipts, the unlabelled files, the surprise revisions.
Now think about doing it 10 to 40 times a day for 14 weeks, and you will understand why tax professionals seem a bit disgruntled by the time spring rolls around.
Preparer and client: the sacred bond
"There are a lot of horror stories in this business," said one preparer, "but maybe you shouldn't use my name."
Tales from the tax trenches, like any other information discussed in an accountant's or tax preparer's office, are highly confidential -- almost comparable to those of the confessional or psychoanalytic couch. To protect those pros interviewed from possible reprisals, the anonymity of all has been preserved.
Even conspiracy buffs pay taxes
One lady "really believed the flying saucer people would come get her," said a former H&R Block preparer. "She'd whisper to you and come to the office kind of camouflaged because 'they' were always watching her and might hear what she said."
This client would wait patiently at the office for the only one of the office's half-dozen preparers she trusted to complete her return. "She was even suspicious of other people in the office because they might be 'them,'" the preparer continued. "She didn't have to file, she was on disability, but she didn't want to do anything suspicious that the flying saucer people would know about."
Violence, lies and exotic dancing
One preparer remembered a client who always showed up drunk and would "scream and carry on." Another recalled belligerent clients who, "if they didn't like your bottom-line figure, would leave slamming the doors, cursing." The tense relationship is complicated by the fact that many clients apparently think of H&R Block, the tax preparation agency, as being just another arm of the Internal Revenue Service proper.
Attempts to bribe preparers to doctor returns or "ignore" unfavorable information are common, albeit quixotic. Not that a bribe would do any good -- independent of the IRS, tax professionals actually have no real power to affect your return beyond their own knowledge of the tax code and their diligence in filling out the form.
Gestures of mercy, while rare, do exist, however. One senior citizen who was surprised to learn that he did in fact have to pay taxes on his 401(k) was "so pitiful that I paid his preparation fee," said one tax pro. "They all gave me a hard time in the office."
Another preparer told of working on a return for an exotic dancer. Anyone who wears a uniform for a job can count the clothes as an expense, provided you can wear the uniform on route to work. The dancer, laughing, explained that she did have costumes, but "wouldn't think of wearing those outfits on the street!"
As the preparer recalled, the stripper got the deduction anyway.
Time is fleeting…
In the first weeks of the year, clients are optimistic and happy, confident that the process will bring them happy returns. But the season soon drops into a period of increasing nastiness that reaches a frenzied peak in early April.
Near the April 15 deadline, when offices are so crowded that clients without advance appointments risk waiting for hours in the lobby, tempers reach their breaking point.
Volume preparers like H&R Block often schedule clients into tight blocks, with a 1040EZ allotted 15 minutes and more complicated returns given up to 45 minutes.
At that rate, a seasoned bookkeeper can process up to 40 returns in an eight-hour day, but the pace, combined with stress from combative clients, causes even the most seasoned professional to get a bit tense.
…madness takes its toll
"What do you hate most about April?" Various preparers gave these answers:
"People bringing in their children. You don't have a place for them and most of them are unruly."
"Anything that has to do with New York. New York has so many kinds of taxes, it costs the most money to have [a New York return] done."
As the month drags on, especially difficult issues can drive a preparer to distraction. Cows, for example.
"Farm returns are the worst," noted a now-retired preparer. "Farms depreciate their cattle." Not to mention "pigs, chickens, whatever…."
A farm return (Schedule F) requires the preparer to know not only how many livestock currently reside on the acreage, but when they were bought, how much they cost, and how long each animal was expected to live.
"It's just like a car, only for hundreds of head of cattle," the preparer explained.
Compared to the endless calculations of animal husbandry tax law, a complex return like a partnership (requiring an overall return for the business entity itself and then a Schedule K-1 for each partner, plus the partners' personal returns) can be almost a welcome diversion for an overworked accountant.
Poor filing skills and squalor
Tax preparers reserve special loathing for those hapless clients who bring in one or more boxes of unsorted paperwork -- some financial, but most completely irrelevant -- and just dump it on the desk.
"I've seen love letters, dog food receipts, pecan tart recipes in between the bank statements," said a preparer. "Our processing staff actually Xeroxed the recipe and sent it to the IRS with the income reports by mistake."
While the pecan tarts probably gave some lucky IRS agent hours of pastry enjoyment, a simpler recipe for helping your preparer's mood is to keep your paperwork reasonably clean.
Tales of abused income statements and other crucial paperwork are common, with spilled coffee being the worst and most common offender.
Electronic printing has freed the tax community of the need to decipher illegible handwritten documents, but the computer has brought its own hardships to the business.
"Some places don't print very well," was a complaint nearly as common as coffee stains or poor organization. "You have to hold the forms up to the light to make out what's going on." 
-- by staff writer Scott Martin
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
